ERCC BILLERICAY TO ISLE OF WIGHT - 1 June 2007
Riders - Paul Day, Dave Impey, Alan Lobely, Dave Lobely, Frank Ramsey, Ray Smith, Tony Smith, Mark Stanbury
Support car drivers - Roy Fisher & John Millernas
Well here we are again - this year’s trip to the seaside with a good sized group of eight cyclists and two drivers. In previous years the club has done B2B (Bournemouth), B2C (Cromer) so this year it had to be somewhere beginning with D, so Down to the Isle of White it would be, and longitudinally you can’t get more south than that – the B2D!
This year’s outing promised to be an action packed weekend with the 135 miles ride to Cowes on Friday, a ride across the island on Saturday and a sailing adventure on Sunday.
Mark had done an excellent job in organising the trip and had booked us in to the UKSA (UK Sailing Academy) for two nights with meals, packed lunches and sailing for the reasonable charge of £111.30 per person. We even had an exhaustive list to help us pack everything we needed, but come on now Mark – buckets and spades?, you should have known there’s no sand near the sailing academy!
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Day 1 - Friday
We arrived early at Mark’s house aiming for a 6:00 start and as we were packing our luggage and food into the cars one of his neighbours started shouting at us from her bedroom window, I thought, that’s nice, she’s giving us an encouraging send-off but no – she was upset with the noise we (mostly Mark) were making, she’ll be on telly next week talking about her neighbour from hell!
Le Grande Depart |
Paul Pete Ray Dave I Frank Mark Alan Dave L Tony |
It’s 06:15 and we’re off!, it was a bit chilly this early so most of us had a couple of layers on except for the Eskimos amongst us, we also had an extra rider – Pete Mitchelmore who rode with us for a few miles as part of his early morning training ride. The pace was easy for the first mile or two but we soon got into our stride and made good progress passing through Horndon On The Hill before picking up the old A13 towards Lakeside.
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We reached Tesco’s car park Lakeside in an hour averaging over 18mph which was quick but many more miles to go yet! We had a good leg stretch and our first bite to eat while the bikes were loaded onto the car’s roof racks, then we all piled into the cars for our lift over the QE2 bridge and resumed our ride from Dartford. |
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The terrain became hillier on the Kentish lanes but everyone was coping well as we maintained a steady pace towards Sevenoaks. We had two forced stops, one on the A224 in Riverhead and the other fifteen minutes later when Paul and then Tony both had rear wheel punctures, but not to worry we had a track pump to make short work of inflation! |
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Our route took us past Brands Hatch before reaching Edenbridge, where we stopped at a pub in the High St for lunch, we had covered about fifty miles so far at a respectable speed of 17mph.
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Ray decided to get in the car at this point so seven of us continued our journey westwards taking us past Gatwick airport and Horsham before reaching the horrible Quell Lane which is a VERY steep road on the southern flank of Blackdown - the highest point in the south of England.
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Standing on the pedals we struggled to keep them turning but the hill finally won and all of us had to walk some of the way, it was even hard work just pushing the bikes! We regrouped at the top where John’s car was parked and took on some food and drink trying to find some energy for our tired legs, ninety miles covered now - still at an average of 17mph. |
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We carried on towards Petersfield when Pauls legs, with ninety-five miles in them, started cramping up and he decided to call it a day and get into the car.
Pressing on past Petersfield with the South Downs looming in the distance the legs were starting to feel the mileage but you could take your mind off it by taking in the splendid views of grass, hedges, trees and more grass!
We seemed to take a long time getting over the South Downs, Tony was convinced that we had criss-crossed them about four times!, but it was a case of one hill too many for Dave as he had to cut his ride short and get into the car with 110 miles under his belt.
The cars had gone on ahead to the ferry port leaving us with the simple job of following the signs through Southampton to the ferry - what signs?, we had to stop but with Mark doing some map reading and others asking directions we finally arrived at the ferry with five minutes to spare – talk about cutting it fine!
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We stored our bikes on the bottom deck of the Red Funnel ferry and made a beeline for the restaurant to get some grub down us and crash out on the nice comfy chairs. |
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After another short ride of about a mile we finally arrived at the UKSA!, it was now 8:30pm and the whole journey of 138 miles had taken a riding time of 8hr 30min giving an average speed of 16.2mph.
The rider of the day award was given to Tony who was strong throughout the day and always willing to take the lead – well done Tony!
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After booking in and putting our bikes into a lockable store room we settled into our rooms (two to a room) and had a nice hot shower. With stomachs rumbling we took ourselves to the Indian restaurant in town, where UKSA had kindly made a reservation for us, and proceeded to devour curries and pints of beer – lovely!
It had been a long day, now time for some shut eye before tomorrow’s ride.
Day 2 – Saturday
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It was a misty start to the day but by the time we went down to breakfast it was looking very promising with blue skies and sunshine. |
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and I did!, with a full plate plus banana, yoghurt and fruit juice this was a great start to the day. We had some time to kill before starting our ride at 10:00 so some of us sat on the benches outside overlooking the harbour and enjoyed the sunshine.
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The packed lunches, provided by UKSA, were packed into John’s car which would be doing escort duty for us today allowing Roy to join us on the ride, and of course Mark brought his whistle. |
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We stopped at Godshill for a munch and toilet break before continuing southwards and turning left at Shanklin towards Sandown where we would stop for a break. It was at this point that Paul, obviously recovered from the day before, decided to go ballistic with me hanging on as he raced away from the group – and kept going until we reached Sandown with no sign of the others. A phone call confirmed we had gone too far and we cycled back to regroup near Sandown Pier.
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With the sun blazing and the sea beckoning it was shoes and socks off for a paddle as the lunch was unpacked - nice food too! - well filled baguettes, crisps, bananas, cake and juice. |
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After sunbathing for an hour we set off again in a westerly direction along the coastal roads which were becoming seriously hilly in places. Arriving at Ventnor, the southern most town on the island, was an experience in descending skills (or lack of them!) as we zig-zagged our way down the steep winding road with our brakes applied to reach the bottom.
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We stopped here for some refreshments and took the opportunity to have a look around the small harbour and beach. Being on the side of the Downs there was no easy way out of the town so on we went, in bottom gear, frequently standing on the pedals as we slogged our way up the coastal road still in a westerly direction, It surprised me how hilly the island was, especially on the south coast with many long and tough climbs. |
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Passing through Blackgang this white gang turned northwards at Chale towards Chale Green where we sat on the grass and had an ice-cream while efforts were made to re-establish contact with Ray and John whom we had lost earlier. We were soon regrouped again, Ray and Roy got into the car as we set off on the final leg of our journey. |
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Mark was still in an aggressive mood judging by the gap he had opened up on his lone break, but we decided enough was enough and three of us sprinted ahead to eventually overhaul him and now four of us charged along at high speed, no-one wanting to give in until we reached the outskirts of Cowes – that was exciting!
We covered forty-five miles that day, crossing from the top of the island to the bottom then back again.
After a shower we had a quick pint and visit to the souvenir shops in town before making our way back for a nice dinner at the Academy. We went out again in the evening for some serious drinking on a pub crawl (do two pubs count as a crawl?) followed by some chips – well, we couldn’t leave the seaside without trying out the ‘fish & chip’ shop, could we!
Day 3 – Sunday
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Shiver me timbers! we take to the boats today. We had breakfast at 7:30, packed our bags into the cars then killed a bit of time until it was time for our sailing lesson at 10:00. We were given wet suits, life jackets and helmets to put on but John had to swap his suit for a larger size when he started to turn blue! |
Hello Sailors – ERCC with their two guides |
After a quick course on how to tack, and tie ropes we were assigned to our boats and towed to the sailing area like mother hen with her ducklings. Dave and I were put into one of the ‘two man’ boats, and with our lack of any sailing experience it was going to be a case of the blind leading the blind – hope the life jackets work!
We had to have at least one capsized boat and that pleasure went to Ray and Roy who, with a cheer from their shipmates, got an early ducking as their boat promptly turned over as soon as it was untied from the dinghy.
As soon as we were all cast adrift we set about doing some serious sailing but there was a problem with the wind – there wasn’t any!, and we spent most of the time drifting around aimlessly - very relaxing though.
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We got back to the academy at about 12:30, put our bikes on the cars and set off for home, luckily catching an earlier ferry than our planned one with the added bonus of seeing the Gypsy Moth sailing past on its way to the Isle of Wight. After about an hour’s driving we stopped at a service area to tuck into our packed lunch of baguettes, fruit and drink kindly provided by UKSA. |
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 Q. How many cyclists does it take to fix a car? |
After a few more hours we pulled into a service area on the M25 for John to give Mark a break from driving. Just as well we did when Roy, who had pulled in behind, noticed his temperature gauge was off the scale! |
We finally arrived at Mark’s house in the early evening and went home with good memories of the weekend.
UKSA had done us proud with the accommodation, food and activities and some of the lads are talking about a second visit of their own. Here is a link to their site for anyone interested – www.uksa.org
Also, many thanks to Roy and John for manning the support cars and doing an excellent job, without which the ride wouldn’t have been possible.
Frank
